Creating a Camera+ effect

In version 2.0 of Camera+, we added a whole new FX pack, I ♥ Analog, with 9 fabulous filmic FXs to give your photos a retro flavour. From start to finish, each FX takes several days to create, test and implement. In this video I’m going to share the process on how we created one of our most complicated FXs, Nostalgia from our new I ♥ Analog Pack.

Step 1: Concept

The concept for the analog pack was a throw back to retro film styles gaining huge popularity in the iPhone app world. The challenge with creating new FXs for the I ♥ Analog pack was that I had already created 27 FXs for the app, 9 of them “vintage” in the Retro pane in the app, and these had to be completely different.

My original idea for Nostalgia was actually based on an old photograph of my mum taken in the early 70s. I loved the slight cross-processed look and the slightly yellowy aged look. I also searched Flickr for images taken in the same time period and started to form a colour palette for the FX.

Step 2: First draft of the formula

After I collect some good example photos, I fire up Photoshop and try to replicate the color, tone & contrast with an iPhone photo. One concern I always have is keeping the amount of layers and processes to a minimum. We try to keep our FXs as speedy as possible and more layers = more code & longer processing times. For this initial draft of the Nostalgia FX, I had 5 layers.

rollover to see unedited photo

Step 3: Testing

Once I feel like I have a good “formula” for the FX, I start testing it on hundreds of iPhone photos. Some look great, some look horrible. This is when I often have to go back and change, if not completely revise the formula and start from scratch. This one was working quite well so after making some tweaks, I pass on the first formula to Karl von Randow, our coding wizard.

Step 4: In-app testing

Karl tries to get the code in the app to match my Photoshop file as closely as possible, but it’s not a perfect match, so he rolls out an initial draft FX for the rest of the team to test with as many iPhone photos as possible. At this point, we felt like the FX was too similar to other Retro FXs we had, so it was back to the drawing board for me.

Step 5: Wolfgang creates textures

During the testing phase, we decided that adding some textures to the FX would make it more unique and stand out from other 35 FXs I’d previously created. I did a quick Google image search for textures and started experimenting with them. Once I’d found something that was working, I passed them on to our design wizard Wolfgang Bartleme to create original textures for Nostalgia.

Step 8: Karl optimization

With a lot of the I ♥ Analog FXs , we were seeing a huge lag in processing times up to 30 seconds for an iPhone 4 photo. This is one of the huge challenges with creating FXs for iPhone apps. Complex processes like Gaussian blurs can add 10 seconds of processing time on FXs, so we rely heavily on Karl to make these FXs as speedy as possible.

Step 9: Ship it!

Once we’ve got the FX looking constant and the team is happy with the results, we are ready to ship the FX. Start to finish, each FX takes a lot of time and effort to take from concept to working code inside Camera+. The I ♥ Analog pack was the most ambitious group of FXs I’ve undertaken, and I truly hope you enjoy using them to make your iPhone photos more retro fabulous.

We’re providing you with this handy pack of the Photoshop files, textures, and code so that you can play around with all of this yourself:

If you’re interested in finding out more about Camera+ and the I ♥ Analog FX Pack, visit the Camera+ website at http://campl.us.

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23 comments

Love the detailed run-through! And absolutely LOVE Camera+ — the first app to replace the official camera app in my dock (and I have tried quite a few in my time with the iPhone!), and one which I consistently love filtering images through!

Looking forward to future filters and all the wonderful goodies you guys are so good at making!!

Love it! For those of us who use Aperture, would you guys ever consider releasing a Cam+ plugin pack? I’d definitely buy it, and would lovelovelove to have metadata from the app available in Aperture. Someday. Thanks!

It would be killer if you guys released all these BitmapContext in a framework - be it open source or a closed framework so you can hide your mojo. Would be awesome for us devs who have great ideas, but aren’t as talented in image manipulation…

Useful post!
I’m so curious, do you choose to use some sort of compiled Library for image manipulation (like imageMagick or similar) or in BitmapContext you utilize “only” Core Graphics !?!?!?
Thank you for your answer and for this cool post!

Usually I don’t buy through in-app purchase especially if the application it’s not free. However, after reading this post, and after loving camera+, I definitely decided to buy it. I really appreciate your deep description of the process of designing new effects.